FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY - Key Persons

Ana Menéndez has published four books of fiction: Adios, Happy Homeland!, The Last War, Loving Che and In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, whose title story won a Pushcart Prize. She has worked as a journalist in the United States and abroad, lastly as a prize-winning columnist for The Miami Herald. As a reporter, she wrote about Cuba, Haiti, Kashmir, Afghanistan and India. Her work has appeared in publications including Vogue, Bomb Magazine, The New York Times and Tin House and has been included in several anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature. She has a B.A. in English from Florida International University and an M.F.A. from New York University. A former Fulbright Scholar in Egypt, she has also lived in India, Turkey and The Netherlands, where she designed a creative writing minor at Maastricht University. She is an associate professor with appointments in the WPHL and the department of English.

Job Titles:

• Associate Professor
• Department of Modern Languages

Bio Andrea Fanta Castro is an Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Languages where she teaches courses on contemporary Latin American culture and digital literacies. She is the co-creator of the Our Stories Project. Her current project involves the creation of a digital archive of the Latin American diasporic experience. In particular, she is interested in collecting, archiving, and preserving personal accounts of the migration experiences, recuperating the cultural memory of Latin American communities. She is the author of Residuos de la violencia, producción cultural colombiana, 1990-2010 (Editorial Universidad del Rosario, 2015) and the co-editor of Territories of Conflict: Traversing Cultural Studies in Colombia (University of Rochester Press, 2017).

Job Titles:

• Director
• As Director

As Director, Casey Steadman will continue The Wolfsonian's critically acclaimed exhibition program while also expanding the institutional footprint. Committed to student success, he also plans to work collaboratively with The Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab to create not only a resource for students, but also one for the entire community, driving a renewed interest in the humanities that bridges public, academic, and civic spheres.

Job Titles:

• Deputy Director
• Member of the Leadership Team

Dr. Julio Capó, Jr. is a transnational historian whose research and teaching interests include modern U.S. history, especially the United States's relationship to the Caribbean and Latin America. He addresses how gender and sexuality have historically intersected with constructions of ethnicity, race, class, nation, age, and ability. He teaches introductory and specialized courses on all these subjects, as well as courses on public history. Capó's research and teaching interests extend to his commitment to civic engagement and public-facing work. He curated "Queer Miami: A History of LGBTQ Communities," which won the 2019 Museum Excellent Award from the Florida Association of Museums, for HistoryMiami Museum. He worked as a broadcast news writer and producer and, more recently, his work appears in mainstream publications, including The Washington Post, Time, The Miami Herald, El Nuveo Día (Puerto Rico), and The Abusable Past. He was a commentator for BackStory with the American History Guys (Podcast) and the PBS/Miami Herald documentary The Day It Snowed in Miami. He also works with the National Park Service and contributed to efforts to promote and identify historic LGBTQ sites, including writing a theme study chapter on Miami. The Organization of American Historians recently named him a Distinguished Lecturer. Dr. Capó's first book, Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami before 1940 (UNC Press, 2017), highlights how transnational forces-including (im)migration, trade, and tourism-to and from the Caribbean shaped Miami's queer past. The book has received six awards and honors, including the Charles S. Sydnor Award from the Southern Historical Association for the best book written on Southern history. His work has also appeared in the Journal of American History, Radical History Review, Diplomatic History, Journal of Urban History, Journal of American Ethnic History, Modern American History, GLQ, H-Net, American Studies, and several edited volumes. He is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships and he has held several prominent posts. The Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender History awarded him the Audre Lorde Prize (2018, for "Sexual Connections"), the Immigration and Ethnic History Society awarded him the Carlton C. Qualey Award (2011, for "Queering Mariel"), the Urban History Association awarded him the Best Dissertation Award (2011), and UMass Amherst awarded him the College Outstanding Teaching Award (2016). He was Visiting Scholar at the University of Sydney's United States Studies Centre (2017), a Postdoctoral Associate at Yale University (2011-12), and serves as the co-chair of the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender History and on the Editorial Board for the Journal of American History.

Job Titles:

• Director
• Leader
• Member of the Leadership Team
• Director, Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab / Department of History

Dr. Rebecca Friedman focuses on the history and culture of modern Russia. Her monograph Modernity, Domesticity and Temporality in Modern Russia: Time at Home https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/modernity-domesticity-and-temporality-in-russia-9781350112438/ (Bloomsbury, 2020) explores how, from the nostalgic landed estate with its backward gaze to the present-focused and efficient urban apartment to the utopian communal dreams of a Soviet future, the idea of time was deeply embedded in Russian domestic life. Her 2006 book on the history of masculinity in Russia --Masculinity, Autocracy and the Russian University, 1804-1863 - examines behavior, loyalty and sociability among a generation of Russian university students that would reshape the Russian social and political landscape for decades to come. She edited (with Barbara Clements and Dan Healy) Russian Masculinities in History and Culture, (https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780333945445 ) which is the first volume in English to focus on the growing field of Russian masculinity studies. She has also written about Russian childhood, the gendering of the Cadet Corps and European Identities. She edited (with Markus Thiel), European Identity and Culture: Narratives of Transnational Belonging (Routledge, 2012) Dr. Friedman has been a leader at Florida International University in a number of capacities. She served as the Director of the European Union Center of Excellence/European and Eurasian Studies for over eight years and since 2012, she serves as the Faculty Fellow in the Office of the Provost and in 2019, she was named Director of the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab, one of FIU's Emerging Preeminent Programs.

Job Titles:

• Associate Professor at Florida International University FIU

Bio Elisa Silva is Associate Professor at Florida International University FIU at the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab and the Department of Architecture. She is principal and founder of Enlace Arquitectura and Enlace Foundation, established in Caracas, Venezuela, a practice that address the integration of cities including informal settlements through participatory design processes and cultural programs. Their work has received awards in numerous design competitions and international architecture and urban design biennials. The San Juan María Vianney Church in Media Legua, Venezuela was awarded in the XI BIAU 2019 and the project Integration Process Caracas in the barrio La Palomera is part of the XVII Venice Architecture Biennial 2021. Elisa received the Rome Prize from the American Academy in 2005, the Wheelwright Fellowship from Harvard in 2011, Graham Foundation Grant 2017 and the Lucas Artist Fellowship 2019. She is co-author of CABA: Cartography of the Caracas barrios (2014) and author of Pure Space: Expanding the Public Sphere through Public Space Transformations in Latin American Spontaneous Settlements (Actar, 2020). Elisa has a Master in Architecture degree from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. She has taught at Princeton University School of Architecture, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Design at the University of Toronto and the Simón Bolívar University in Caracas, Venezuela.

Job Titles:

• Program Manager

Bio Enrique Rosell is the Program Manager at the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab (WPHL) at FIU. His work focuses on supporting and planning all events around FIU & the Miami community coming from WPHL, managing external relationships/partnerships, supporting faculty initiatives, and creating special projects directed towards building digital archives of oral histories from the local community. Enrique also leads "Our Stories": a photographic and reflective undergraduate student-based project/podcast series that documents student stories during the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of disposable cameras and written reflections.

Job Titles:

• Associate Professor Director, Master of Arts in Architecture

Gray Read teaches history, theory and sustainable design in the School of Architecture at Florida International University. She holds a PhD from University of Pennsylvania and is a licensed architect. She has written two books on historical urbanism, focusing on human scale and the theatrical nature of public spaces, design qualities that can contribute to more sustainable cities. She has also written a visual history of climate to a billion years ago, offering an accessible summary of the current crisis.

Job Titles:

• Assistant Director of Marketing, Communications Special Partnerships and Liaison [.]
• Assistant Director of Marketing, Communications Special Partnerships and Liaison to WPHL, the Wolfsonian - FIU

Bio Ian Rand brings a diverse artistic and management background to the many roles (currently Marketing & Partnerships) he has filled over the past fifteen years at The Wolfsonian-FIU. In his first career he was a theatrical press agent, working on Cats, Les Miserables, The Phantom of the Opera and Rent, among many other Broadway productions. He spent three years in Toronto as the Director of Publicity for Livent, Inc., the world's first publicly traded theatrical production company, where he launched the world premiere and subsequent Broadway productions of Ragtime and Fosse. Ian received an MFA in Film at Vermont College of Fine Arts, and his pre-Wolfsonian non-profit background includes many hours logged at The Public Theatre in New York and non-profit management coursework at Harvard University Extension School.

Job Titles:

• Assistant Director of Digital Experiences at the Wolfsonian - FIU
• Supervisor for the Metadata Squad

Bio Isabel is the Assistant Director of Digital Experiences at the Wolfsonian-FIU where she shapes the museum's digital strategy and leads the creation of the museum's digital interactives and initiatives. Her work primarily focuses on widening online access to the museum's collection and deepening audience engagement with museum objects. This includes the improvement of object metadata, establishing the museum's presence on various discovery platforms and exploring trends and innovations in museum technology. In addition to her digital work, Isabel is the supervisor for the Metadata Squad, a team of graduate research assistants tasked with researching and digitizing the museum's object records. She also serves on the museum Student Engagement and DEAI committees. Isabel Brador Assistant Director of Digital Experiences at the Wolfsonian-FIU 305-535-2652 ibrador@thewolf.fiu.edu

Job Titles:

• Assistant Director of Digital Collections
• Director, Digital Collections Center

Bio Jamie Rogers is the Assistant Director of Digital Collections at Florida International University (FIU). In this capacity, she leads the digital production, digital scholarship, data management strategies, and preservation for internally and externally funded digital initiatives in collaboration with the FIU community, as well as local partners, including municipalities, cultural heritage institutions, government agencies, and scientific organizations.

Job Titles:

• Executive Director, Miami Beach Urban Studies Associate Dean for [.]
• Executive Director, Miami Beach Urban Studies Associate Dean for Cultural and Community Engagement, CARTA

Job Titles:

• Director
• Director / Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum
• Director of the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum

Bio Jordana Pomeroy is the Director of the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University. She received her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College and holds a Ph.D. in art history from Columbia University. Dr. Pomeroy wrote her dissertation on the sale of the Orléans Collection and the origins of London's National Gallery, which lead to a post-doctoral fellowship at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. As the Chief Curator at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC, she organized many internationally-recognized exhibitions, including Italian Women Artists from Renaissance to Baroque and Royalists to Romantics. She has authored and edited many books and articles, with a focus on women in the arts. She serves as Board Member-at-Large, Diversity, for the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries. At FIU, Dr. Pomeroy teaches as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Art and Art History.

Job Titles:

• Digital Archivist & Project Manager

Bio A native of Kentucky, Katie moved to Florida in 2016 to pursue a master's degree at the University of Florida's Center for Latin American Studies. She was introduced to library and archival work at UF, and parlayed different roles held during her time as a student into a position digitizing Cuban Judaica items and periodicals on the ground in Havana, all part of a post-custodial digitization project undertaken by the UF George A. Smathers Libraries. Following this experience, Katie enrolled in a library and information science master's program at the University of Texas at Austin. During her time at UT Austin, Katie served as a graduate research assistant for digital projects at the UT Libraries, where she assisted area studies librarians on various facets of their digital projects. As a student during the onset of COVID-19, Katie combined her interest in digital archives, which had become even more important, with archival work seeking to preserve the stories of historically underrepresented groups and themes in the archives. As her final capstone project, Katie translated from English to Spanish the metadata of all the public access interviews of the Texas After Violence Project, a community archive and documentary project that seeks to preserve the stories of Texans impacted in various ways by the state's criminal justice system. She is very excited to begin her post-graduate career as an archivist in Miami: her favorite city. At the WPHL, Katie advises partner organizations and interns on the different archival aspects of their digital collections, from metadata creation and copyright clearance to sustainable digital storage solutions and digital humanities tools for showcasing/enhancing collections.

Bio Nathaniel Cadle studies and teaches American literature written between 1860 and 1950, with a special focus on the ways that literature participates in political discourse and that popular media help disseminate avant-garde literary ideas. For instance, his publications include studies of realist novels and utopian fantasies of the late nineteenth century and their relationship to the Progressive movement, and he regularly teaches courses on the popularization of literary modernism in mass magazines of the early twentieth century.

Job Titles:

• Director
• Director / Jewish Museum of Florida - FIU